They don’t bother chaining me anymore—my body is its own cage.
All I can do is lie here and wait for whatever comes next.
Some nights, I pray to get out.
Other nights, I pray to stop existing. For my body to just give out. To let everything go black and finally rest. Feel nothing. Think nothing.
But the universe is cruel.
I keep waking up.
Gideon’s been here more lately.
One night, he stormed in raging—shouting in my face, striking me again and again.
I don’t even know what set him off. His words smashed against my skull but never made sense.
The next day—maybe the next hour, I can’t tell—someone came in. Cold hands. A prick in my arm.
When I wake again, my vision is clearer.
My mind… sharper. My body is still weak, but the fog lifts just enough for me to recognize an IV has been set up,
But clarity never lasts long here.
Gideon returns. More yelling. More blows. Another IV bag.
Then again. And again. As if he wants me conscious just to watch me break.
And in one of those thin, cruel moments of lucidity, I finally understand what he’s so furious about.
Jace.
He rants about how I “ruined” his son. How Jace has become ungrateful, uncontrollable.
But Jace is the reason I’m here.
My thoughts are like pulling at loose threads. Some just fall right out and are gone. Others are more entangled.
I don’t have the strength to pull on them.
But I know one thing with painful certainty: Whatever Jace is doing out there…it’s driving Gideon mad in here.
Something wakes me.
I close my eyes again and focus on listening. A distant pop. Then another. That was a gunshot. Multiple gunshots.
For a second, I think I’m dreaming. My brain has tricked me before, heard voices that weren’t there.
But some sort of explosion rattles the walls, small debris falls from above and lands on my sensitive skin.
My eyes fly open.
This is not a dream.
I hear the heavy metal door being opened, Butch cursing as heavy boots move down the stairs.
I can hear more voices now, more gunfire. They float down from the door.
